Southern Ruby (34 page)

I rang Elliot and agreed to meet him in an hour. I sat on the edge of my seat all the way in the streetcar, barely able to keep still. When I rang the doorbell to Elliot's apartment, I jiggled from foot to foot and tugged at the owl charm necklace around my neck. I hadn't felt comfortable wearing Nan's pendant for this occasion.

‘Hello,' said Elliot when he opened the door. ‘Come in.'

His smile and the sight of Duke the squirrel perched on his shoulder helped to calm me. I let out a breath and followed him into the living area.

‘I called your house last night to see if you wanted to listen to a band at Snug Harbor,' he said, moving some magazines so I could sit down on the couch. He placed Duke on the windowsill. ‘But your grandmother said you were out for the evening.'

I looked at my lap and straightened my skirt so he wouldn't see the beaming smile on my face. He'd wanted to go out with me?

‘I was with Blaine. We took a drive along the River Road and then went to a Wiccan magic ceremony in the swampland.'

Elliot clapped his hands and laughed. ‘Blaine is a character! — when he invites you on one of his adventures, you can be sure it'll be interesting. I've been to a frog festival with him, and visited the ambush site of Bonnie and Clyde with a male psychic friend of his who'd dressed as Bonnie for the occasion!'

It was my turn to laugh. ‘I like Blaine too. He's quirky.'

‘Do you want an iced tea?' Elliot asked, standing up and moving towards the refrigerator. ‘It's non-alcoholic, I promise.'

Despite the ceiling fans that rotated the air, it was hot inside the apartment. Beads of sweat had formed on Elliot's lip, and I was glad that I'd given up wearing heavy eye make-up since coming to New Orleans, otherwise I would have looked like the racoon I'd seen the previous night. I nodded, and he took out a jug of cold tea with pieces of lemon, pineapple, peaches and mint in it. Homemade: I liked that. He poured the tea into highball glasses and placed one on a coaster in front of me. I took a sip. The tea was tangy and refreshing and not overly sweetened.

‘Perfect!' I said, taking another sip before placing my glass back on the coaster. If I'd been more forward I might have added, ‘Just like you!'

Elliot indicated two CDs on the coffee table. ‘I made you a compilation of the recordings I found of your father playing in various clubs. The other CD is an interview he did with WTUL radio in 1978. I thought you might like for us to listen to that together?'

I nodded and he inserted the CD in his player. After the announcer had introduced my father as ‘a trailblazer in leading a revival of jazz in New Orleans', he asked how he was enjoying his new fame.

‘I'm not interested in being a star,' my father replied in a low-key, softly spoken tone. ‘What I'm passionate about is music and being able to share it with others. In fact, I think stardom can spoil the art. It can make you mediocre and common, and I don't want that to happen.'

I took a sharp breath. My father spoke with the charming lilt of a Southern gentleman. I didn't know why, but I hadn't been prepared for that. He sounded like I'd imagined Clifford Lalande had sounded. He was humble in his manner too. I was aware that Elliot was watching me and in spite of myself I started to cry.

‘Are you all right, Amandine?' He reached over and turned off the CD player.

I stood up and moved to the window. ‘His voice!' I gasped. ‘His voice! It's as if he's here in the room!'

After Nan died, I'd kept her answering-machine tape and played it over and over so that I'd never forget the sound of her. But I'd been familiar with her voice. Hearing my father for the first time was a shock.

‘It's more intense than looking at photographs or examining objects that belonged to him,' I told Elliot, wiping my face. ‘He seems alive in real time . . . but he can't hear me. I can't ask him all the questions I have.'

Elliot stood and grasped my hands in his. ‘It's all right, Amandine. I thought the interview might be difficult. That's why I suggested we listen to it together, so you wouldn't be alone.'

Something about the word ‘alone' made me cry harder. ‘Alone' was what I'd felt for years. The only time I'd had any relief from it was when I was with Nan . . . and now that I was here with my New Orleans family.

Elliot guided me back to the couch and cradled me in his arms. His embrace made me feel protected, like I was enclosed in a suit of armour. I nodded to let him know I was ready to listen to the rest of the interview. He pushed the play button.

Now that the initial shock had dissipated, I listened to my father's every word with a deep ache in my chest.

When the interviewer asked him about his highly advanced technique, he replied: ‘I loved to play music. Nobody had to tell me to practise. I was up early before school, and raced home straight afterwards to sit at the piano. Perfecting my technique was a way of respecting the music, of allowing something greater than myself to move through me.'

He finished the interview by saying: ‘I give thanks every day that I was born in New Orleans. I've had the finest teachers. Some of them paid for by my parents; others were the great old men of jazz who I met in bars and clubs and who wanted to impart their knowledge to me. I've been living a charmed life. I owe it to the city to honour its traditions.'

After the interview ended, I rested my head against Elliot's chest. He stroked my hair with the tips of his fingers. The only sounds in the room were the whirling fans, our breathing and Duke crunching on some peanuts. The peace gave me a chance to reflect on the things my father had said and to further build my picture of him.

‘When the interviewer said my father was leading the way for a revival of jazz in New Orleans, what did he mean?' I asked. ‘Hasn't New Orleans always been the jazz capital?'

‘It is the birthplace of jazz, but the city's segregation policy exacted a high price,' he answered. ‘Many of the greats moved north to get away from the oppression. Places like Chicago, New York and San Francisco benefited from the influx of skilled jazz musicians, while New Orleans grew staid. Your father studied, adapted and modernised traditional New Orleans jazz, as well as creating his own compositions. He laid the foundations for the sweeping revival of the 1980s and 1990s, but unfortunately he died before he could see it.'

I relished the feeling of Elliot's warm chest against my cheek. Somehow we were together naturally. I remembered Blaine
saying that my father and Elliot had similar personalities. Was that one of the reasons he was so easy for me to be with?

When he turned my face towards him with his hand and kissed me, a bubbly sensation filled my heart. His lips were warm and tasted fruity from the iced tea. When he pressed me harder to him, I wanted to stay, but my father's interview had brought up feelings that were overwhelming. I needed to clear my head before returning to Grandma Ruby.

‘I've got to go,' I told him, breaking away. ‘I've got to sort myself out.'

He nodded and didn't try to convince me to stay. ‘I'll take you to Preservation Hall tomorrow night,' he said. ‘Your father first played there when he was fourteen years old. I think you'll like it.'

We kissed again when we parted in the courtyard of his apartment building.

‘After Preservation Hall, I'll take you to Pat O'Brien's,' he added. ‘We'll make a New Orleans night of it.'

‘Okay,' I said, not afraid to let my beaming smile show now. ‘I'll look forward to it.'

After I left Elliot, I had an urge to visit my parents' tomb again. I bought a bunch of pink dahlias, then caught a bus from North Rampart Street to Saint Louis Cemetery Number 3, but when I arrived at the gate I couldn't remember exactly where the Lalande tomb was located. Had Aunt Louise and I turned left or right? I took a guess on right. I recalled us making a detour from the main path but couldn't remember where.

Despite the orderly layout of the cemetery, I was lost. I was pondering the problem when I saw a familiar figure walking towards me. It was his straight posture and relaxed gait that gave him away, otherwise I wouldn't have recognised him in his
pressed shirt and tie, with a trilby hat perched jauntily on his head. I'd only seen him in casual clothes.

‘Terence!' I called.

‘Well, hello, Amandine,' he said, lifting his hat. ‘You're looking a little flustered. Is everything all right?'

‘I came to visit my parents' tomb but I can't remember where it is.'

He turned towards the section to the left of us and rubbed his chin. ‘I'm sure I've passed the Lalande family tomb a few times and I have a feeling it's over there. Let's go take a look.'

I thanked him, and a short while later we were standing in front of the tomb. The flowers Aunt Louise and I had left were gone — they would have dried out in the heat by now — but there was a bunch of lavender in one of the urns. It touched me to think my father might have a fan who hadn't forgotten him. I put the dahlias I'd brought in the opposite urn, then Terence and I sat down on a stone bench.

‘Elliot played me a recording of my father being interviewed on local radio,' I told him. ‘I feel confused. I loved my nan, but I'm angry at her for never letting me know anything about my father while I was growing up. I'm twenty-five and everything I learn about him hits me like a tidal wave. I'd like to talk with her, and I'd like to talk to him, and I can't talk to anybody!'

He squeezed my arm but didn't speak for a while. Then he said, ‘Sometimes the people who love us do things we don't understand because they love us so much. Even though they know what they're doing will hurt us, they do it to protect us from greater harm.'

I thought about what he said, but I still felt mad at Nan. I didn't know how I was ever going to regain my peace of mind. Still, it wasn't Terence's problem so I changed the subject.

‘How come you're at the cemetery today?' I asked him.

‘My grandparents are buried here. I try to come a few times a year.'

‘Just your grandparents?'

‘That's right,' he said.

After Blaine's detailed explanation of New Orleans burial customs and how many family members could fit into one tomb, I found it unusual that only Terence's grandparents were buried in the cemetery, but he didn't elaborate and I didn't pry.

‘So the cemetery wasn't segregated then?' I asked instead.

He shook his head. ‘Most cemeteries in New Orleans aren't. In light of the fact that we're all equal in death, it seems a pity we spend so much of our earthly lives squabbling with each other, don't it?'

I thought of the stories Grandma Ruby had told me about segregation, and remembered the slave quarters at Oak Alley plantation.

‘Do you feel angry about the way black people were treated?' I asked.

He stared at the tomb and said quietly, ‘What's the use of being angry about times gone by? Can't change it. I'm thankful for the people who laid down their lives for the advancement of other black people. I try to show them respect by being the best man I can be. That's the only way I can repay them.'

A breeze scattered the dahlias I'd placed in the vase. I stood up and fixed them more securely. When I turned around I was surprised to see Terence weeping.

‘Your father was too vibrant and special,' he said, dabbing at his eyes. ‘A person like that shouldn't die so young.'

I was moved that my father's death had affected him so deeply. I thought about the interview Elliot had played for me earlier. My father wasn't in any way the selfish, thoughtless man Nan had brought me up to believe him to be.

I returned to the bench. ‘You were one of the musicians who taught my father how to play traditional jazz, weren't you? In the interview he said there were men in New Orleans who he'd
met in bars and clubs who taught him the true style of New Orleans jazz.'

Terence's eyes opened in surprise. ‘Yes, Amandine, I was. I met him at Preservation Hall. He used to sneak to my place in the Lower Ninth Ward without telling his family, just like you're doing now.'

‘What makes you think I'm sneaking?' I asked.

‘I know what those fancy folks in the Garden District think about where I live. If they knew, they wouldn't let you come.'

A twinge of guilt pricked me. I was sneaking around for exactly the reason he'd described. I linked my arm through his. ‘I'm glad I found you. It feels like magic. You'll be my special secret, okay? I want to surprise Grandma Ruby by playing her something of my father's.'

He stared at his hands and smiled. ‘There are no secrets in life, Amandine. Just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface.'